


Dreaming in Digital -1

by cyborgharpy



Series: Dreaming in Digital [1]
Category: Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Dream Sex, F/M, I Wrote This Instead of Sleeping, Long-Distance Relationship, Sexual Fantasy, Sharing a Bed
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-15
Updated: 2018-03-15
Packaged: 2019-03-31 15:44:16
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,598
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13978311
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cyborgharpy/pseuds/cyborgharpy
Summary: Companion kink forEnterprisingly'sPlay To Win, a modern AU fic about pro-gaming that I'm currently editing and . . . had feelings . . . about. This takes place after (and as a response to)Chapter 6so if you haven't read that far, you shouldn't be here.You've been warned, even.All blessings and joy are to be showered on the original fic and at my girl for letting me beta and send her smut headcanons at 2am in true support of my dumpster-diving tendencies.





	Dreaming in Digital -1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Enterprisingly](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Enterprisingly/gifts).
  * Inspired by [Play To Win](https://archiveofourown.org/works/13535535) by [Enterprisingly](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Enterprisingly/pseuds/Enterprisingly). 



The yellow light on his face shimmers, distorted by the image on the screen just outside the hotel room window. His long eyelashes cast tiny shadows that move as he breathes, and this close she can count all the freckles and beauty marks on his face. She wants to connect the constellations of them with her fingers, but this is dangerous territory.

Rey can’t sleep—a side effect of that last, unneeded Paloma, but also the fact that she doesn’t want this night to end. Their conversation in the bar, that silly attempt to sneak up the elevator, all of that is a blur. Right now he’s real and beside her, his face tilted towards the ceiling and turning a placid shade of blue as the light shifts. His body is too big for any bed, California king-sized or not, and he’s angled towards her with his long fingers buried in the down pillow beneath his head.

“Ben,” Rey breathes. His face remains still; there’s just the flicker of his eyes beneath his eyelids as he dreams. She moves closer to him, her hand reaching out of the covers to brush a lock of hair away from his cheek. It’s grown longer—something easy to catch over the series of streams she’s watched—as if he had forgotten to get a haircut recently in the lead-up to the championship. She likes it this way, even if she loves it, even more, when his ears peek out beneath a shorter cut. It’s a rare sight: one she’s only gotten when he’s thrown his headphones across the room in a fit of post-game rage.

As childish as his outbursts were it was a relief to know how different he was alone. He was shy, guarded. Exposed. The mask had dropped, and when he’s dead to the world there isn’t a trace of his online persona at all. There’s just the man who spent the whole day finding ways to twine their fingers together, who’d shown a kid how to hit the flippers just right on a Terminator pinball machine, and who had looked at her like she was the only person in existence in the sea of people on the Santa Monica Pier.

Her heart is racing, even just lying here, half-asleep. The sudden dose of adrenaline is the last thing she needs in the middle of the night. Especially not when she needs to catch a train before dawn even breaks. Rey’s more used to calming herself when flight-or-fight kicks in from an incoming player attack. The familiar lights and flashes from the periphery of her computer screen are much less tense than the quiet of this unfamiliar room.

Her hand feels too heavy now, even just lightly resting against his temple. Rey intertwines her fingers in his thick hair, marveling at how soft it is. She tries not to brush his scalp, but she’s forgotten about the wristband she’d refused to take off before bed—her memento from Scum and Villainy. The red wax paper rustles just over his ear and he makes a sound in his sleep and pulls towards her.

She’s paralyzed, face inches from his. His breath is warm against her forehead, mint toothpaste belying the tinge of bourbon underneath. Guilt rises up in her chest as she pulls her hand back and slowly, carefully, pulls it under the duvet.

 _This isn’t right_ , she tells herself. _He trusts you. You have to be the one in control._

But she can’t help herself: she plants a gentle kiss on his chin, hopefully far enough away from those full lips that she can’t be accused of taking advantage of him.

Just as quickly she rolls over and curls into a ball. She’s always slept on her side—at least as long as she can remember. Each foster home was a new side to sleep on until she was comfortable with either, her back always to a wall and her arms and legs tucked in to protect her core. She’s slept alone for just as long, so it maybe isn’t so weird that she can’t deal when someone is finally beside her.

Perhaps it’s the sudden change in her position that rouses him, but he sighs heavily behind her, and she swears she can feel his eyes open.

“Rey,” he murmurs through a thick haze of sleep. “Are you awake?”

Her body freezes like a rabbit in the headlights of a car. The pillow is cool but her face is hot against it, growing hotter still as she fights the urge to respond.

She hears his quiet breaths, now shallow, and wills herself to relax. But she’s always been bad at pretending.

“Yes,” she says after an endless second. “Are you?”

He laughs softly and she turns, finding his face in the multi-colored dark.

“Can’t sleep?” His eyes are half-lidded but lucid. He’s smiling with the corner of his mouth again, and it sends a shiver down her spine.

“I don’t think I want to,” she admits.

“Anything I can do to help?” he says, and— _fuck_ —he actually looks concerned.

Rey shakes her head, tears threatening to stream from her eyes. She’s tired and shouldn’t be keeping either of them awake, much less in this state. But his earnestness is making her heart flip-flop in her chest.

“What’s wrong?”

“Nothing.” She tries to bury her face in the pillow beneath her head to hide, peeking out at him with a forced smile. “I’m happy, really.”

The moisture that streams down her nose from the corner of her eyes contradicts her. Rey has never had a problem crying when she’s happy, whether it was seeing a cute puppy or an especially moving cinematic in a game she’d been playing hours to see. But this is different. This is hurt and happy all mixed up in a jumbled mess that’s quaking beneath her ribs.

His face is lit lime green, now, and while it’s a sickly color . . . he’s beautiful. It’s even more apparent when he’s concerned—his eyebrows knit and jaw relaxed. She doesn’t remember ever seeing him this way before; never on her screen, at least.

“Talk to me, Rey.” His right hand comes up to brush the tears away from her face. His thumb streaks wetness across her cheek and she leans into his touch like she had, hours earlier. This time it’s different—she feels like his touch might ignite them both into flame.

“Would you . . . please . . . hold me?”

It’s a relief—as if a hundred tons of shame just disappear—when he smiles fully back at her. His dark eyes crinkle at the corners, and he’s as goofy as a kid, really. He changes position so his right arm can reach out to her from beneath the covers.

“Come here.” Rey doesn’t even have to move much as he encircles her shoulders, pulling her into his chest. She’s buried under his chin, drying her cheeks in his soft shirt, as his hand rubs her back.

“I’m sorry to keep you awake,” she says into his collarbone.

“I wouldn’t miss this for all the idiots asking me to give up my trade secrets at my table tomorrow.” They share a laugh, his breath in her hair.

“You asked me earlier what I want this to be,” she says—more confident now, even if she’s not sure if her buzz has slipped completely away. Her heart feels like it is mutinying. His body stills but his hand continues its pattern. It drifts from her shoulder blades to the small of her back, changed from a comforting touch to something even more delicate.

“Yes.”

“I want this to be ours, alone,” Rey lifts her chin to try and see his expression from an impossible angle. “I don’t want anyone else to decide for us what we can and can’t do.”

He pulls away. Each inch seems to be a chasm, dividing between them, until they make eye contact. He looks just as afraid as she feels, his dark eyes darting across her face.

“I know we can’t . . . this can’t . . .” she says, “but I want you.”

Suddenly she’s a little girl again, standing outside another strange home with her one backpack of clothes and her ratty trainers and a cheerful smile for the strangers inside. Even though another rejection waited for her, she had always tried to hope. A knot forms in her throat as she watches his face for a change in expression. Impassable as it is, his eyes are quick—as if adrenaline were rushing through his system, too.

“Just you,” she says.

Whatever she’s trying to find in his expression is lost as he leans in and kisses her, softly. It’s not the gentle brush of lips like before. This time he’s shifting his entire body in bed, releasing his left hand from beneath their shared pillow to hold her face. He doesn’t kiss just her mouth—no, he kisses her tears away and even her eyelids and nose. The softness is perfect, but it’s not what she needs.

When he comes back to her lips she’s starving for it. The blood rushes to her head as his mouth opens slightly and hers follows, their tongues lightly touching. Her own hands twine in his hair for real now, greedy for what they’d been denied. Her fingers find the shell of his right ear, brushing the lobe with her thumb. She curls her tongue between his teeth.

“I want you, too,” he says when they finally pause to breathe. His forehead is touching hers, his eyes blurring into one.

“Obviously—,” she laughs but he cuts her short by kissing her again. He’s tasting her, experimental, eliciting gasps from her throat with each bruising press of his mouth.

Now that she has him where she wants him, she can’t stop. She never wants to stop; whether or not they _should_ doesn’t even factor into it. Her hand fumbles for his thigh, running up his side and underneath his body-warmed shirt. She finds the smooth planes of his torso, his skin almost cold against her touch. The fact that this had been so close all day only for her to deny herself the pleasure of knowing it is not lost on her. She explores each inch of unseen skin, marveling at the sounds he makes when her fingers ghost across his abdomen.

Ben takes the hint, shimmying out of his shirt before she can ask. Rey doesn’t let him get free of it before she’s pushing him back down onto the bed, her mouth tracing his sternum and lower. She keeps the covers over her even as she straddles his legs, arching her back to trail kisses up his chest.

He’s undeniably hard beneath her, only two layers of fabric separating them. She grinds her hips forward, experimentally, and he moans so loudly she’s sure their neighbors can hear it. But despite that he’s still holding back, his hands fisting the sheets. It’s as if he’s scared of what he could do when released.

“So tense,” she teases in a whisper, fingers running over the definition and soft hair at the edge of his joggers. “Is this why you’re so angry all the time, Ben?”

Her goading works. He sits up, as always too big for his own good. He practically devours her—his tongue entering her mouth to tease her own. His hands slide up and under her shirt, thumbs brushing the undersides of her breasts. She whimpers, rubbing her face against his in-between experimental kisses.

“I haven’t had a day’s rest since I saw that first picture of you,” he says, finally, as he kisses her neck.

“Bet you were happy I was a girl.” She gasps as he bites and sucks, not hard enough to leave a mark but hard enough to know he wants to.

“Not just any girl.”

He tugs the shirt up and over her arms, with her assistance. She immediately covers her torso, gooseflesh rising on her skin at the rush of chill air. His hands warm her as one would wake up a limb, unwinding her arms so he can drink her in. She’s blushing, almost angry that he’s just . . . looking.

“When’s the last time you did this, Rey?” Ben asks softly.

“Never.” She can’t meet his eyes, even though she’s perched in his lap and distinctly aware of where their bodies meet. His hand is on her face, tipping her chin up. He’s got a half-wild look in his expression but there’s no surprise, no condemnation.

“It’s been a long time for me,” he says, a smile creeping onto his face, “but we’re taking this slow.”

She gasps as he picks her up and places her back against the pillows. The cold air of the hotel room and the sheets are like ice as he pulls away, but then his mouth is on her breast. It’s all the heat she needs as he takes a nipple in his lips, delicately, and darts his tongue across it. He rolls the other between his fingers. Small keening noises come out of her unbidden. He teases her, kissing and nuzzling each of her small breasts as she writhes beneath him. And then his fingers are between her legs, over her underwear. She has a half-second to register she’d wished she’d worn a nicer pair before he’s rubbing through the fabric. It’s already damp. The ache in her belly flares into pure need. She’s used to touching herself but his fingers—god his huge fucking hand—feel completely new to her.

He kisses her again on the mouth as he works two fingers in slow circles over her clit, still teasing, sometimes threatening to move past the waistband but always coming back.

“Ben, please,” she whines, and he has the nerve to _laugh_ at her.

“Say it again, Rey,” his voice is low and he’s moving his fingers down the bare skin of her abdomen, now, pushing aside the last bit of her clothing.

“Please.”

“No.” He shakes his head, swatting her hand away from where it’s unconsciously grasping for his groin. “Say it again.”

She blinks, “Ben.”

“Good girl.” Then the two fingers of his right hand are back and working their way beneath the cotton of her panties, burying in the slickness between her legs. The callused tips trace a back and forth line between her swollen labia.

“I want you to say my name. Over and over again.”

Rey arches in the bed, trying to grind against them and work her way out of her underwear. It’s not enough, and yet it is. He’s watching her even as he’s circling her entrance, maddeningly.

“Please,” she grits out between panting breaths. “I want to touch you, too, _Ben_.”

He brushes her clit with his thumb, experimentally, still curling a finger only to the most shallow depth inside her.

“I want to feel you come first.”

 _That shouldn’t be hard, she thinks._ She whines instead, her hips moving against his too-slow hand. And then he stops and she fucking _growls_.

“Ben Solo, what do you think you’re doing?”

But he’s ignoring her as he moves down between her legs. Her underwear are gone just as suddenly, and his hand returns but so does his mouth. His tongue is tracing the same lines where his fingers had been before and she sees stars in her vision.

She’s imagined it for herself, of course, but there’s no way she could anticipate what it would be like. It’s the most intimate and exposing thing in the world. Ben’s mouth is gently moving on the most delicate part of her body, his eyes flicking up to meet hers. That’s really what matters—those dark eyes catching the blue light in the room and seeing into her soul. His large body consumes the lower half of the bed, and it makes her twist deeper into the mattress. His fingers—first one, then two—penetrate her in gentle strokes. Those fingers are so long his knuckles are barely inside her but she feels herself widening, changing to accommodate him as he fucks her deeply with his hand.

And _dear lord_ she can feel more than hear him—over her own cries—telling her to come. It doesn’t take long, his fingers curling inside her to internally massage the same spot where his mouth works at her clit. The orgasm starts as an involuntary clenching, working its way tighter and tighter around his fingers, until her body shudders and the tension breaks. She can feel it in her goddamn toes, and her fingers grip his hair without much thought to if it’s painful for him, as she eases him up from her now-sensitive skin.

“Good girl,” he says, and she likes the way he says it: not possessively, but as if she were a goddess he was worshipping on his knees. When he moves back to lie beside her, she can smell herself, and it’s not at all unpleasant—just salt and tang. She kisses him deeply, her naked knees entwining with his clothed ones.

“It’s my turn,” she says, reaching between them. Beneath his pajama pants, she can feel his length. Even in her dazed, loose state, she’s overcome by the desire to get him naked, to touch and taste him the way he did her—but when she moves to get up he stops her with a hand on her face.

“If you don’t mind,” he says, breathless. “I’m not sure how much more I can take.”

“At least let me touch you, Ben. I’ve never really felt . . .”

He shimmies out of his pants and to her delight there’s nothing else beneath. His erection looks almost painful to her, and she is delicate as she moves her fingers over the smooth shaft and close-shorn hair surrounding it. When she’s confident she can’t hurt him she grasps him in one hand, pulling the silken skin over the firmness beneath.

“Oh god, Rey.” He kisses her deeply, groaning into her mouth. “You can’t imagine how many times I’ve thought about you, just like this.”

“Like this?” She smiles into his lips. She’s seen enough porn to know at least the basics of what to do. She grips harder and twists as she works him, her thumb running over the wet tip of his cock to rub the precum into his tight head. He’s practically shaking, sweat breaking out across his forehead as she peppers his open mouth with kisses.

“Rey, Rey—please,” he begs her and she knows what he is asking.

With a wash of distant fear, she realizes it’s happening, and this part—well, this part she’s not sure what to do because she doesn’t know how it works, really. The idea of choosing a position or a rhythm mildly terrifies her. So when he grabs her hips to roll her under him she’s grateful for it, releasing his cock to bring her hands up to her face and push the hair that’s plastered to it out of the way.

But he’s stopped, and something like panic is distorting his features.

“This is the worst timing in the history of the universe, but . . .” He’s frozen over her, looking around the room as if he’ll find some answer in the unfortunate wall art. Recognition clicks into place under Rey’s afterglow, and she laughs.

“You don’t need a condom, Ben. I’m on the pill.” Lord have mercy, she’d never thought she’d be thankful for the NHS and Medi-Cal more than in the moment she sees relief wash over his features. He rests his forehead against hers, nudging her nose with his.

“I can still wear one if you’re worried . . .”

“You brought them, huh?” She nips at him. Even naked and astride her, with his erection against her thigh she can see he flushes crimson.

“In my defense, it’s just something you bring to—”

“No, thank you,” Rey stops him from ruining the moment. “I want to feel you come inside of me.”

If he was blushing before, he turns incandescent. Even his ears are pink. She kisses away his shock and he comes back to Earth, adjusting himself on one arm so their bodies are mirroring despite their difference in size.

“Tell me if this hurts.” It’s the least sexy thing she can imagine anyone saying, and she opens her mouth to protest, but then he’s thrusting into her and it’s like her entire brain short-circuits. He’s thick—just as wide really as the rest of him—and she’s being completely filled by him. It’s easier post-orgasm and with her wetter than a London winter but— _dear God_ —she can’t fault him for asking. He’s slow and gentle, and he’s curved to kiss her even as his hips roll into her with her legs parting on each side of him. She’d wrap them around him, but she’s sure they’d never meet.

He’s over her, inside of her, enveloping everything and she never wants to leave. Each thrust is like his fingers, moving deeper, opening her wider. She finds herself against his ear, biting the lobe to keep herself from shouting. But he’s also maddeningly patient as if he were afraid that he’d break her just by moving too fast or being less gentle.

“Ben,” she says with little, involuntary cries. She can feel herself tightening again. She doesn’t expect to come again with the weirdness of it being her first time, but, something lurking in her belly is coiling in on itself. It has other plans. “Ben . . . can I be on top?”

His breath wooshes out slightly as he stops, his eyes flying open.

“Does it—”

“No, no—I just want you . . .” she drifts off. He kisses her and then, abruptly, grabs her with one arm beneath her ass and flips them both, still inside of her. It’s almost impressive. His hands rise up to grip the spot where her belly meets her hips, fingers rubbing gently against her skin but holding her tight.

“I don’t know how long I can last like this,” he admits. His hair is matted across his forehead and his deep, brown eyes are practically glowing.

“I don’t need long.” Rey leans down to kiss him as gently and sweetly as he had right before she’d fallen asleep. That rising light in her chest blooms with it, and with the look of pure adoration he’s giving her. She works out how to move herself up and down his length. Somehow, being able to control the angle and the speed works in a way she never really gave much thought to. His hips rise up to meet hers in a perfect tempo and his eyes shutter close. It’s taking everything in his power to keep himself from losing it and it’s this power—the power she has over him—that helps her work towards another climax. That and grabbing both his hands to move one to her belly, and the other to her right breast.

She rubs herself against his thumb and lets out an “oh fuck” each time their bodies meet, watching him battle unseen forces in his brain as he grits his teeth and works her tighter. And she’s like an over-tuned guitar string: when the second orgasm hits her she makes a sound that she knows the next three rooms down can hear. She quakes around him, lowering herself to kiss him more deeply and passionately than anything they’d shared before.

His hands are already on her hips to maintain the speed and motion she’d initiated, and he groans into her mouth like it’s the sweetest thing he’s ever tasted. He’s thrusting deep into her, their bodies meeting in the slipperiness of flesh and the hardness of muscle. Incomprehensible grunts follow as his thighs strain against her. He cries out, and then she can feel it—the ticking of him inside her almost in step with the unwinding of her own body around him.

“Rey,” he says after he comes, and _Lord help her_ , there’s something in his eyes so intense she can’t look at it for long: it’s like staring at the sun. They’ll have to figure that out later. Right now his hands are in his hair and he’s kissing her delicately, whispering things she’d never thought she’d hear spoken to her by anyone, much less this man.

“I love you,” he says.

 

* * *

 

Rey’s eyes fly open, and she’s back in her room, her laptop resting on her chest. In between streams of under-classed players on Twitch (with new strategies) is a chat screen focused on just a single person. The only person she has talked to online, in weeks.

 

> **Ben Solo**
> 
> _Are you awake?_
> 
>  
> 
> **Rey Sanderson**
> 
> _Yes. R u?_
> 
>  
> 
> **Ben Solo**
> 
> _Can’t sleep?_
> 
>  
> 
> **Rey Sanderson**
> 
> _Don’t want 2._
> 
>  
> 
> **Ben Solo**
> 
> _Anything I can do to help?_
> 
> _What’s wrong?_
> 
>  
> 
> **Rey Sanderson**
> 
> _Nothing rly. :)_
> 
>  
> 
> **Ben Solo**
> 
> _Talk to me, Rey._
> 
>  
> 
> **Rey Sanderson**
> 
> _Well . . . when I c u . . . will you hold me?_
> 
> _Sorry to keep you awake._
> 
>  
> 
> **Ben Solo**
> 
> _Yes. Of course, yes._
> 
> _Sorry, I was dealing with assholes._
> 
> _I wouldn’t miss this for all the idiots asking me to give up my trade secrets tomorrow._
> 
>  
> 
> **Rey Sanderson**
> 
> _U asked me what I want this to be in LA._
> 
>  
> 
> **Ben Solo**
> 
> _Yes._
> 
>  
> 
> **Rey Sanderson**
> 
> _I want this to be ours, alone._
> 
> _I know we can’t . . . but_
> 
> _I want u_
> 
> _Just u_
> 
>  
> 
> **Ben Solo**
> 
> _I want you, too._

 

Rey had fallen asleep, exhausted by the day now long behind her. But here she is, at 3 am PST. The sun will just be rising on New York, she thinks. Shafts of light might make their way through his darkened room, and maybe she can still give him something to brighten his morning. She types, carefully, sleep-addled as she is.

 

 

> **Rey Sanderson**
> 
> Thank u
> 
> _I dreamt about u_
> 
>  

And the dream—or rather the fantasy she’d fallen asleep with—wracks her body with guilt. She hasn’t washed his hoodie in weeks, just to keep his smell on it. The last traces of his aftershave are almost gone, replaced by the french toast Poe had made that morning. But she’s pulled the cords tight around her chin and zipped it up tighter, just to feel encircled by the ghost of his arms inside of the sleeves.

But her favorite memory of him is the one that she can hold, the one they’d bought with their last tokens in the arcade.

Rey keeps the photobooth strip safe in her sock drawer, under a layer of underwear and leggings. At times she takes it out and sees him again, usually when she’s getting dressed. Ben’s not looking at the camera—no _he’s looking at her_. He’s always looked at her like she was the only thing in the world, but these images capture the reality a memory cannot.

He’s framed against the white curtain with its rounded pattern splitting one half of the picture. The other curtain behind them is black and full of triangles and she’s in front of it, laughing and smiling and making gestures which seem alien compared to his stillness in the other squares. And still, he’s looking at her. First her mouth, then her cheek, and then her eyes. When their eyes meet, it's as if the world hadn’t existed until she was alone in that small space with a strange flash and her eyes on his lips. She’d wanted him to kiss her then, but she's grateful they'll have the chance to again soon—in the secret place they’ve shared everything else.

**Author's Note:**

> As always, I owe [Enterprisingly](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Enterprisingly/pseuds/Enterprisingly) for making me love modern AUs. Not only is she a lovely human being, she's helped me write again (and publish porn on the internet). I am not worthy.


End file.
